[citation needed] Russell and Holmes return to their home in Sussex, England, in 1924 after seven months abroad in India, Japan and California.

The novel features a domestic mystery as a hive on Holmes's farm has been repeatedly swarming and a colony of bees is found to have disappeared.

Action shifts, however, with the reappearance of Damian Adler, a talented young painter and emotionally disturbed veteran of World War I, first introduced in the second book in the series.

The search involves the British practitioners of a religious cult called The Children of Lights with roots in Shanghai, China, and features locations ranging from Bohemian London to the wilds of Scotland.

While the climax of the novel, in an ancient circle of standing stones in Orkney, brings some plot resolution, the story continues in The God of the Hive (2010).